1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to umbrellas. In particular, this invention relates to a conventional self-opening umbrella utilizing a pistol-shaped handle with a trigger-activated opening device as a mechanism for opening the umbrella.
2. Prior art
Umbrellas of varied shape and size with numerous utilities have been developed over many years. Recently, automatic, compressible, self-opening umbrellas, have been developed which are quite popular, because of their ease of operation and their convenient size.
On occasion, there have been attempts to combine with umbrellas various other types of products, either for novelty purposes or with a particular utility in mind. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,617,951 discloses a stilleto-type weapon concealed and locked within the handle of an otherwise conventional umbrella. In addition, novelty-type umbrella combinations have been disclosed for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,038,483 and 4,628,791.
The '483 patent discloses the combination of a child's umbrella and a water pistol. The handle of the umbrella of the '483 patent acts as the storage container and trigger mechanism for the water piston while the shaft of the umbrella encloses a passage through which the water is expelled from the water pistol. The remaining portion of the umbrella acts as a conventional, manually-opened, child's umbrella.
The '791 patent discloses the combination of an umbrella and a music box with a special clip for securing the music box to the umbrella shaft at a location where the canopy-spreading mechanism of the umbrella automatically activates the music box when the umbrella is opened.
While these umbrella combinations are interesting, none have disclosed the combination of a conventional, self-opening umbrella and a pistol-shaped handle, wherein the opening mechanism for the umbrella is the trigger mechanism of the pistol-shaped handle.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an umbrella with a pistol-shaped handle.
It is another object of this invention to provide a conventional, self-opening umbrella with a pistol-shaped handle, said handle containing a trigger mechanism which opens the umbrella.
It is a further object of the invention to provide novel pistol-shaped handles for attachment to conventional self-opening umbrellas, wherein the trigger mechanism activates the opening mechanism of the umbrella frame.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following description, drawings and appended claims. The description with accompanying drawings provides a selected example of construction to illustrate the invention.